Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash
When it's time to job search, move on from a toxic job, or upskill, how should we do it? Nobody really "teaches" you how to make career decisions.
If you've ever made a bad career decision, then you already know that the fallout from one bad decision can be expansive (and expensive!).
We've been making decisions our entire life. It's estimated that the average adult makes about 35,000 remotely conscious decisions every day.
Even after a lifetime of making decisions, making the "correct" career decision can be really tough. After all, your career affects your income, healthcare, mental health, and how you spend a lot of your waking hours.
For example, accepting a job that doesn't reflect your core values can translate to a few months of misery or an indeterminate length of unemployment.
Beyond affecting your life trajectory, decision-making skills are important in your career, especially as you climb that career ladder. Managers, too, can make poor decisions that affect their whole team. One bad hire can make a strong impression on an entire team—and it's not the kind of impression that improves morale.
Like many of the toughest skills we learn by trial and error in our professional lives, the career decision-making process is not a skill taught in school. The luckiest among us learn decision-making skills from various work experiences, unexpected barriers, and, well, embarrassment.
So, how can we learn how to make good decisions—preferably without having to experience failure and shame?
In this article, we're exploring ways to become an expert decision-maker in your own career.
Make Confident Career Decisions: 7 Steps to Thoughtful Career Decision Making
There are different types of decision-making styles and strategies. While some folks are enthusiastically impulsive decision-makers, others find that they get caught up in overthinking instead of making solid decisions.
The truth is that a great decision-maker exists somewhere between the most impulsive maker and the chronic overthinker.
Do any of these decision-making styles look familiar to you?
- Impulsiveness: Leverage the first option you are given and be done.
- Compliance: Choosing the most pleasing, comfortable, and popular option as it pertains to those impacted.
- Delegating: Not making the decision yourself but pushing it off to trusted individuals
- Avoidance/deflection: Either avoiding or ignoring decisions in an effort to avoid responsibility for their impact of just simply preventing them from overwhelming you.
- Balancing: Weighing the factors involved, studying them, and then using the information to render the best decision in the moment.
- Prioritizing and Reflecting: Putting the most energy, thought, and effort into those decisions that will have the greatest impact.
1. Define Your Values + What Matters to You
So, you have a decision to make—and your career future might be riding on this choice. Whether you're looking to get your first job, exploring unexpected but interesting opportunities, or making high-stakes decisions in a leadership role, take time to be thoughtful.
Making Leadership Decisions
If you're in a leadership position where your decisions can affect the organization's culture, this step should also include the company's values. "Big" decision-making is one of the less desirable components of a leader's job responsibilities.
In this first step, make sure to align your values with your organization's core principles. If your company has a mission statement, use that as the center for your decisions.
Write down the key core values and use those as stepping stones to mapping out your decision. For example, if you're a leader tasked with reducing staff in different functional areas of the company, there's so much to consider.
Ask yourself important questions like:
- What type of work does this person do?
- How does this job function fit into the company's goal of [GOAL]?
- How does this department's work affect the stability of the entire company?
- What assessment tools can help me determine what each job function brings to the bottom line?
- How does each layoff reflect the company's core values of [VALUE]?
2. Get Some Feedback From Your Gut
Did you ever make a really damaging decision, only to wish you had listened to your gut? Me too. Your gut can serve as a reality check for tougher decisions.
While biases can influence your gut (we'll get into those in step six), conducting a gut check is always good. Sometimes, your initial reaction is the correct one. At the beginning of any career decision-making process, give your gut a chance to offer its own input.
3. Determine Who Will Be Affected by Your Decisions
Who is affected by this decision? Does the decision affect you and only you? Does this career decision affect your family and the future of your family? If you're in a leadership position, does this decision affect your colleagues? What are the potential rewards of this decision? Conversely, what are some downsides of making this decision?
As you progress through your career and take on more senior positions, the effect of your career-based decisions likely has a further reach.
It can seem like it happens overnight. What was once a decision that affected you now could affect a family that depends on you, a team, or even your entire organization. No pressure, right?
4. Calculate the Short-Term + Long-Term Effects of Your Decision
When making a decision that affects yourself—such as accepting a new job as a single person—it's good practice to conduct a self-assessment process. Ask yourself questions about how this job can affect the future of your professional life.
Address practical matters, like how accepting this particular salary will help you pay off student debt, meet your monthly rent dues, and help you to save for the future.
5. Think More Creatively
Some career decision-making will require you to choose between two options. For example, "Should I accept this job or reject the offer?" In these cases, there are typically two possible outcomes.
While it might sound easier to decide between two outcomes, Art Markman, a professor of psychology and author of Smart Thinking, explains that you're never *really* deciding between two options.
Sticking to the "accept or reject a job offer" theme, these likely aren't the only two options. When making decisions, get creative and expansive.
Instead of "accept" or "reject" the job offer, you might have more options:
- Accept the job offer today.
- Reject the job offer today.
- Ask for more time to consider the offer.
- Negotiate a better compensation package with the new job.
- Negotiate my current salary by sharing this job offer.
- Reject this offer but use the confidence of a job offer to continue my search.
Expanding your decision outcomes opens the door to further exploration of the decision itself.
6. Locate Any Bias or Pre-Judgments
This is a crucial step in making any decision. Bias is an ugly word, but we all have biases. When we make quick decisions, our biases typically do the heavy lifting. It's uncomfortable to come face-to-face with a bias you may have been unaware of.
Don't be afraid to confront your biases and bias-based behaviors. This is all about learning how to make better decisions, and biases are some of the sneakiest potential barriers to doing so!
Here are just a few biases that working professionals must be mindful of eradicating from their decision-making process.
- Predecessor Bias: I had a really annoying client named Susan, so I won't work with anyone named Susan anymore.
- Experience Bias: I tried that software about ten years ago, and I hated it. I don't want to try it again.
If you find yourself leaning toward one decision, make sure to weed out any potential unconscious biases.
7. Get a Second (+ Third) Opinion
If the first six steps acted as a kind of personal assessment, this final step gets someone else's opinion in the mix.
Depending on the sensitivity of the decision, it might be best to consult a neutral party for a second opinion.
For example, if you're deciding whether or not to accept a high-paying job, you might not necessarily want to consult your spouse. If you need to decide to lay off someone on your team, it's best not to consult a colleague who has disdain for certain folks in your department.
It's best to get a second or third opinion from someone knowledgeable but who cannot benefit from your decision.
